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Current owner of blog is Stephen Dewey at stepheneliotdewey at gmail dot com.

my trip to Israel - part 1

Many of you have heard all about my trip already, but for the adoring masses who aren't fortunate enough to be members of my family or have talked on AIM with me recently, I decided to throw you a bone ;). There is way too much to tell or explain, but I'll do my best in the limited time that I have (I don't actually have limited time but I'm too lazy to type for like three hours or whatever ;).

This was without any doubt the most insane trip I've ever undertaken in my entire life. A lot of that is because I did it totally alone and only had three and a half days to get across Jordan, into Israel, see things, and get out again, but a lot of it also has to do with the unique situation in the region. The history of wars between Israel and its neighbors and the security and social situation that arises from that history make travel a lot more difficult.

I left on Friday night from Beirut and returned to Beirut on Tuesday night. On Friday night I stayed in Amman, which is about an hour's drive from Queen Alia airport in Jordan - most of the civil structures I encountered in Jordan are named after one member or another of the Jordanian royal family, which personally I consider to be disgustingly arrogant, and also pretty pathetic because they're not even nice structures. Then again, my judgement is clouded by the fact that I really don't like monarchies. I literally only stayed in Amman for the night at a poor hotel called the Dove Hotel, part of the Best Western chain, which despite being in an embassy location doesn't even have water pressure. The next morning I left for the Israeli border. I had to pay about $35 to get to the hotel and another $30 to get to the border the next day, not to mention the hotel... it was expensive!

At the borders I managed to convince the Jordanians not to stamp my passport, and then crossed to the Israeli border. When I got off the bus that shuttled us between the two borders, I saw a big sign that said "Welcome to Israel!" and thought that it would be a great photo opportunity, so I took a photo of it. Big mistake! Next thing I knew a security officer came up to me and asked to see my passport, and then took me inside for "special treatment," which meant a rough pat-down search, extensive searching of all my belongings and about 15 minutes of interrogation. After I got through security, I had to get through immigration, which was even more difficult - they were very skeptical of the fact that I was traveling to Israel without any set plans, and that I had Syrian and Lebanese stamps in my passport, and so they took my number in the States and also the number of a friend of a friend in Israel, and ran a background check on me that took at least two and a half hours. I wanted to tell them, "Let me through, I'm an American and we own your freaking country!!" But I don't think they would have cared. It's amazing how suspiciously the Israelis treat Americans, though I guess it's true that terrorists could pose as Americans. There was another American family there that got held up for a few hours too... though the problem there was that the mother of the family was born in Palestine.

Once I got out, I was out of money because I had assumed that transportation would be a lot cheaper than it actually was. This sleazy taxi driver wanted $100 to take me to Jerusalem, and I declined, so he gave me a "deal" for $10 to drop me off at a bus stop on his way to taking somebody else somewhere else (I hate all Jordanian and Israeli taxi drivers, they try to rip you off as much as possible). By this point I hadn't eaten in about 24 hours, because I assumed that the borders would be a lot more porous and that I could eat brunch in Jerusalem (it was now about 4:30!). So I had no money and was starving, and to top it all off it was the middle of the day on Saturday, which is the Jewish Sabbath, so the entire town I was in was totally deserted. I saw a McDonalds and almost wept with joy, but it too was closed. This town was near the West Bank, so not only was I in a desolate location but also a pretty inhospitable one.

Anyway I stood at the bus stop for a while waiting for the bus to Jerusalem to come, unaware that the cost was more money than I actually had in my wallet. A bus came, but it wasn't the right one for me, and after it left I was one of only two people there. I asked the other guy if he was going to Jerusalem as well and he said he was, and then asked me if I wanted to get some coffee. I asked him how much the ticket was and he told me, so now I knew that I didn't have enough money. So, I ***called my parents in America from my cell phone*** (!) and made sure they had put some more money in my checking account, which they had. So, now I could get some food and get on the bus to Jerusalem, after I found an ATM! Too bad there weren't any of those around...

It turns out that when the guy asked me if I wanted to get some coffee, he meant at his house in the town! Next thing I know his brother shows up and we all get in the car, and after going to the ATM we arrive at his house. This place, only about 10 miles from the West Bank, was like an idyllic 1950's American suburb, only richer (see picture to follow). I felt really awkward while we were there, because I literally had only met this guy 5 minutes ago, and here I was at his house! To top that, after he gave me some coffee he prepared a meal for me, which I wolfed down, hungry as I was. I met his parents and got to hear about about his perspective as a Yemeni Jew now living in Israel. Supposedly they're the most right-wing kind, but they didn't really give off that vibe.

To make a long story short, after that we got in the bus, which left two hours later (at 7) and went to his place in Jerusalem, because he had invited me to stay the night. It was a pretty cool experience and I got to meet some of his fellow students at the music school in Jerusalem. This guy was a musical genius and was about to go to Berkeley, but he was in a bad car crash in Texas and lost a lot of his skill, so since then he was trying to gain it back in Jerusalem. Anyway after hanging out with them for a few hours I went out for a night on the town, and came back to his place at about 2 or 3 in the morning. What sucks is, I had to get up at about 8 in the morning because he had to go to class and I needed to leave before then! But it was good to have a place to stay for the first night.

Got to go for now but I'll post some more narrative and some photos in a bit.

pictures/videos from Damascus

Here are the videos that I took from the taxi driving through Damascus when we visited it two weeks ago. I took them basically once right after the other, and they total about 90 seconds of film (with sound). I tried to combine them into one large video, but wasn't able to do it.

It's interesting to see what downtown Damscus looks like... from the videos you might not be able to pick that much out in terms of differences between Damascus and a western city. However this is not a problem because the only major difference visible in these videos is that the Damascus architecture is poorer and there are somewhat more people. Pictures below do a better job of showing the city's architectural uniqueness.

If the videos don't work, that's because I've exceeded my allotted bandwidth on Geocities, which is where I'm storing these; try back in an hour.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

Here are some of the cooler photos from downtown Damascus. First we went to a large market called a souk. Souks are basically large streets or alleys with shops on either side, and are usually filled to the brim with people shopping and bartering. Most souks are in alleys, but this one is larger and newer and therefore wider. It's absolutely packed though, and in the center of Damascus:

(Click on photos to see a larger copy)

They sell a lot of great drinks in the souk. One drink I got was basically raspberry juice made from real raspberries on the spot. Another drink is sold by guys who carry it around in huge jugs on their back and pour it out for you on the spot (they also carry cups around their waist). Here's one of them:

We also visited a major mosque downtown that was built on top of a church that used to exist in Damascus. Damascus was an important city in early Christianity... it was one of the centers of Paul's early ministry, and was the location of the first confrontation between Peter and Paul over the role of Jewish purity laws in Christian theology. This church was converted to a mosque later on, I forget when...

Interior courtyard:

Interior of the mosque (Muslims continue to use this. There is a bizarre mixture inside of worshippers/people praying and tourists...

The head of John the Baptist is kept in a shrine within this mosque (below)... Muslims recognize John the Baptist as a prophet, so they kept the shrine when they took over the church. The body is buried elsewhere.

This is a typical street in downtown Damascus. There are lots of mosques and shops (see a previous post below for a picture of a Damascus residential alley):

another bombing in Beirut

Tonight there was a car bombing in Beirut in the nightclub district. 2 people were injured. This was right after Sec. of State Rice visited the country, but the motivation isn't immediately known. I watched a bit about it on an Arabic-language television station, and happily could actually understand some of what they were saying.

Not to be flip, but the bombing's not a big deal. I heard the explosion from LAU and was expecting something a lot bigger. Things are pretty chill here.

I know I said I was going to do lots of updates tonight, but I spent a fair amount of time just hanging out with some of the students here, so I'm going to have to wait until tomorrow or so.

Condoleezza Rice next door!

That's right, U.S. Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice was about a hundred yards from me for a couple of hours today, in a surprise visit to Beirut! She paid her respects to the Hariri family, whose compound is literally next door to LAU. For those who don't remember, Hariri was the former PM (and speculative future PM) who was assassinated earlier this year, which led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon. His son Saad Hariri has taken over the family political franchise and has one of the largest (if not the largest?) block in the Lebanese parliament today. He will likely be Prime Minister in the future, assuming he doesn't also get assassinated like so many people are these days.

I'm writing this from the LAU courtyard and it is absolutely beautiful! I wished I could show you all what it looks like, and then I realized I can! Here's a photo (I'm getting better at the settings with this, so it looks good):



The computer in the lower left hand corner is the one I'm typing on right now to update the blog!

Tonight I'm going to upload more of my Syria pics and videos plus pictures from some additional traveling I did last weekend. Additionally, you'll get to hear more of my reflections on my travels!

the movies today - plus some pics from Damascus in Syria!

So I went to the movies today to see Sin City... it was the first distinctly Western thing I've done since coming here, but I needed the break. 4.5 hours of Arabic a day really starts weighing on you. I realized today that I now know why babies cry... it's because they can't understand what in the heck everybody else is saying, and have to spend all day learning it!

The movies in Beirut are mostly better than in the US - they're the same movies, but a ticket is only $5, the sodas and candies cost $1, and the seats are super plush, like armchairs. We were in a theater that could fit about 500, but only 15-20 people came to see the movie. The movies are also always at the same time no matter the day - 2:30, 5, 7:30 and 10... 8 different movies at each time! Now that I know about this place I'll probably catch some other American movies before I go home.

The one thing that's bad about the movies here is that they're subtitled in TWO languages (French and Arabic for an English-language movie) so the subtitles take up half the screen...

Anyway, here are some photos from Damascus. It's a beautiful city. Also, what's really good is, I finally broke through the network security so I can just upload pictures to the blog directly, which means the pictures won't cut out again. TO SEE A BIGGER PHOTO, CLICK ON THE SMALLER ONE.

First, here is a picture I took from a little alleyway in Damascus that we walked through to get dinner the first night we were there. A large portion of the city consists of houses surrounded by these tiny alleyways that predate cars. I got the impression that this is the style for most of the residential areas. Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, so that makes sense. It's very romantic/cozy too!


We also went to one of the Syrian government's official museums/souks, and part of it doubled as a propaganda center. This is a bust of one of the country's former leaders, I didn't ask which one:


And here is one of their retired MIG's. To the left you can see a planeclothes "officer" (read: government thug) with some sort of automatic weapon in his hand. Syria has many of these.


I have some cool videos too, which I will upload in my next installment :). Time to go work on some Arabic!

- Stephen

80 miles from Iraq in a Bedouin tent smoking nargileh

Here's update #1 (of many, many to come) regarding my trip to Syria. I have an enormous amount of great stuff to relate, plus I want to keep you all interested, so I'm going to do it in daily batches of descriptions, pics and videos (new!).

[[NOTE: I HAVE BEEN EXCEEDING MY DATA TRANSFER LIMIT RECENTLY, SO PICS/VIDEOS MAY BE TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE WHEN YOU VISIT THE SITE. IF THIS HAPPENS JUST COME BACK IN AN HOUR, AND PLEASE DON'T HIT REFRESH AT ALL. I'M WORKING TO FIX THE SITUATION. THANKS!]

First, I'd like to thank everybody for being so interested in my blog. I really appreciate the readership, and it motivates me to keep writing this. Rock on!

Second, a big welcome to my parents and sister who are now among my readership.

Anyway, on to the trip. One of the things I forgot about going to Syria is that it's right next to Iraq. So there are lots of signs in central and eastern Syria that point you in that direction, for example,


We went far east on Saturday night to visit an old Bedouin town called Palmyra, which has supposedly existed since before the Arabic language reached the region ("Palmyra" is impossible to spell with Arabic phonetics). Palmyra, as well as the road we traveled along to reach it, is only 80 miles from Iraq at the most. And unlike Lebanon and western-central Syria, it's close to a desert. This was the typical landscape driving there:


Here's a picture of the landscape along Palmyra taken at sunset, it was really nice there:


Here's a picture of a roadside reststop we stayed at during our trip to Palmyra, about halfway through, in the middle of the desert. It felt a lot like Tattoine... the people who run the store live in the Luke Skywalker-esque buildings behind me.


In Palmyra we had dinner in a traditional Bedouin tent... it was awesome!!! Here's a pic:


And finally, the best part of this post: I took a video of Bedouin dancers inside the tent!!! This is incredible. Click here to view it - (PLEASE don't download the photo more than once because it is large and I have limited bandwidth! It's ok if you play it more than once, but don't click on the link again if you close the window. You might want to just save it to your desktop)

That's all for now! I'll post another update in about 24 hours.


PS: Two housekeeping comments for you : First, note that sometimes I respond to comments, so you might want to check back if you asked a question or something. Second, I still haven't gotten around to sending invitations to the remaining ~150 people, but I hope to do that tomorrow now that our trips are becoming fewer and farther in-between.

big update coming in 6-7 hours

So I apologize for misleading everybody by saying I'd have an update on Sunday... we got back later than expected and I was much more tired than expected, so I just went right to bed. Then yesterday we had a big birthday party for two of the guys here that lasted all night. Now we're going on yet another trip to yet another Lebanese town. It's a bit much, but that's why I'm here.

Anyway, I have almost a hundred photos and videos from Syria and lots to tell all of you, plus I'm going to send an invitation to the other 150 people I haven't told about the blog yet. So today will be a big day for this blog. For now, though, I have to go.

PS: There was an assassination attempt against the outgoing Lebanese Minister of Defense a few hours ago... though I guess if you only read American news outlets you wouldn't know that. This has become so frequent in Lebanon though that it's hardly even a big deal for me anymore... though it is for the Lebanese citizens here!!

brb,

Stephen

off to Syria!

Off to Syria in under 40 minutes... I can't wait! It will be pretty fun, assuming we can get across the border. This time I'll be bringing my camera with me, so I'll have lots of cool photos for you when I get back (Sunday night; Sunday afternoon for those of you in the States). Syria is a lot poorer and also more conservative than Lebanon, so I have to be prepared for anything.

Take care! I'll post an update on Sunday.